About the High School Huddle

Welcome to the Citizen-Times' constantly-updated blog for Western North Carolina high school sports. Features include breaking news, scores and stats, college recruiting updates and live blogs from some of the marquee games in WNC. Readers are encouraged to comment on posts, but personal attacks on current athletes, coaches and their families will not be tolerated and are subject to edit or removal at the moderator's discretion.

Smoky Mountain alum Jackson Simmons is one of the Western North Carolina players who will be involved in Wednesday's Duke-North Carolina basketball game in Chapel Hill (PHOTO: Raleigh News & Observer).

Wednesday’s Duke-North Carolina basketball game will include five players from Western North Carolina schools – Jackson Simmons (Smoky Mountain), Patrick Crouch (Roberson) and the Plumlee brothers – Marshall, Mason and Miles (Christ School).

ESPN recently asked a list of incoming recruits to the two ACC programs for their thoughts on this season’s first meeting between the Blue Devils and Tar Heels:

If you’re a college hoops fan, you probably have an opinion on who takes Round 1 in the sport’s most storied rivalry.

The future of the two programs have their opinions. So we caught up with every player from Duke and North Carolina’s 2012 recruiting classes and had them make predictions for the Duke-UNC game on Feb. 8 (9 p.m. ET, ESPN).

Naturally, objectivity wasn’t their strong suit, so we added the one player at the top of both schools’ wish lists, Prestonwood Christian (Plano, Texas) junior Julius Randle, to see who he thought would reign supreme on Tobacco Road.

Christ School coach David Gaines and the Greenies will play a game on live television Saturday.

Christ School (25-3) will get the chance to build a new winning streak over radio and live television.

Local TV station WMYA (40) is scheduled to broadcast the Greenies’ game Saturday at High Point Wesleyan. Tip-off is set for 4 p.m.

Friday’s game at Ravenscroft will be broadcast through online radio here.

First though, Christ School will try to bounce back from Saturday’s 71-63 loss to the nation’s top team (Oak Hill Academy, Va.) Wednesday at home against Shannon Forest. The defeat snapped a 16-game winning streak for the Greenies.

Enka’s boys are going to have to earn their second conference basketball championship in three years.

The Jets (12-10, 7-3) have Asheville High (14-6, 6-4) right on their heels in the Mountain Athletic Conference’s 3-A division, but the worse news is that Enka hosts MAC 4-A champion McDowell (16-6, 10-1) tonight before closing out the regular season at home Friday against Roberson (18-3, 7-3).

“(McDowell and Roberson) are two of the more formidable teams in all of Western North Carolina, let alone in our conference. It’s a tall task, but we control our own destiny. Two years ago when we won it, we got lucky and North Buncombe lost on the final night to create a tie. This year, we control our destiny and I hope that makes (tonight) even bigger for us.”

Smoky Mountain guard Will Carpenter defends Pisgah's Rory McClure during a Jan. 11 game in Canton.

Pisgah-Smoky Mountain basketball games never lack emotion.

One of the Western North Carolina Athletic Conference’s top rivalries is not only based on geography, but the fact that the Mustangs’ Jimmy Cleaveland was formerly a state championship coach (2005) for the Black Bears.

So imagine the scene tonight as Smoky Mountain (16-3, 11-1) goes for a share of the WNCAC regular-season championship on its home court.

The backcourt tandem of Tanner Cogdill (14.3 points per game) and Will Carpenter (13.6 ppg.) have helped the defending WNCAC champion Mustangs go unbeaten thus far in 2012, including a 78-71 win at Pisgah on Jan. 11.

At the time, it was the first home loss of the season for the Black Bears (17-5, 9-3) and WNC’s second-leading scorer, senior Rory McClure (21.6 ppg.).

Pisgah will have some unlikely supporters in its corner tonight – Haywood County rival Tuscola (15-6, 10-2) is a game back of the Smoky Mountain boys with two to go in the WNCAC.